John Thomson's I Didn't Know That!

by
John Thomson | Story:
80997 -
Sep 27, 2012 / 5:00 am

We went to Rann Berry’s “One Hit Wonders” show last Friday night with friends. It was a winner.

Most of those old songs held a meaning to the hundreds of people in the Community Theatre. Another great night for Rann’s show. The music brought back such memories. It was from a good time in our lives.

What a night of entertainment and now the show moves to Vernon and Penticton in November.

We have seen the show twice and it just gets better and better.

***When we took our Granddaughter to Disneyland, we went through a tunnel ride where they were playing the Disney song “It’s a Small World.” I have had that song in my brain since. I replaced it on Friday night with, "Seasons in the Sun.”

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I received another email from Dominic Ramponi about a fundraiser they had with the junior team in Yorkton:

Hi, how are you doing?

I am now on the board of directors of the Yorkton Terrier Junior A hockey team and did we hit a home run with this very innovative fundraising idea! We got the city and a local farmer to lease us 200 acres of land, got all the local farm equipment dealers to donate the equipment, local seed companies to donate the seed, local suppliers to donate the fertilizer...

So therefore we just finished taking off the crop and got about 7700 bushels of canola, and the price is about $14.00 a bushel for a gross profit of approximately $100,000.00. With some expenses taken off we should net about $ 80,000.00.

What a great idea...

Maybe some sports groups in the Kelowna area could get an orchard or a piece of land, get the inputs donated and collect the profits. With all the inputs donated the plan works.

The Terriers got a lot of great publicity in the city.

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I stirred up quite a storm with my question on where to keep your ICBC papers in your car so the thieves can’t get all your personal information. There were some good suggestions. Most of the emails leaned towards putting them in a envelope somewhere in the trunk. So I decided I had to solve this by asking RCMP Traffic about their thoughts on the matter. I called and talked to one of the women there and she said she would have someone call me. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. We know your documents have to be with you and the glove compartment is the most unsafe place.

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I had a strange phone call this week from a mystery lady who wanted me to know she had checked my credit cards and there is nothing wrong but I could be paying less in interest. My Visa and MasterCard were not in jeopardy. If I would push "one" she would be glad to give me all the information.

Now that is going to be tempting to some people who have debt problems with their credit cards and let me warn you there is a scam there somewhere and you will be paying for it if you push that number one. This particular outfit comes back with a new phone operation just about every week and they must be good at what they do because they spend a lot of money on phones. Just hang up!

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Photo: Contributed - (Photo: Flickr user - dawn-pinkchick)

I know there is a lot of interest in the dumped Ironman event in Penticton. It has been a major event in Canada for over thirty years. Every time I turn around someone suggests a new city that is interested in staging such a big sporting spectacular. We know Kelowna and Vernon are two as well as Calgary and Whistler. I have also heard that Kamloops is leaning this way as well. I understand the Kelowna representatives where in Tampa last weekend to speak to the owner of Ironman for the World.

Calgary already has an Ironman race called the 70.3. There are five of these events in North America and you can qualify for the big race by winning one of these. Their 2013 event is scheduled for Sunday July 28, 2013.

A group of businessmen were looking at the possibility of buying out the Penticton franchise a number of years ago when it was in financial straits and was having management problems. Nick Iannone, who for years ran the hockey school in Penticton after his hockey playing days, asked me to come down and meet the group that had a job they wanted me to do. They were interested in buying the promotion and there were many problems that had to be fixed including financial. I was to go to St. Louis to talk with the National Promotion director of Budweiser and then go over to Tampa to talk to the owner of the race and his general manager.

I was in the promotion building of Budweiser as they were the major sponsor of the race on the ABC network on their Wide World of Sports broadcast. Can’t remember his name but his first words out were that Budweiser was going to cancel their sponsorship because the race was losing the excitement it had created in the beginning with that woman triathlete who was falling down, getting up, trying to make the finish line, stumbling and of course according to the rules couldn’t be helped until she crossed the finish line. That was real drama he said. Now the winners do this race in a couple of hours and then go and sign autographs.

That was a real blow because they are so powerful.

I went over to Tampa to meet the owner who at the time was an eye surgeon who operated a large hospital for cataract operations. His general manager gave me a half an hour at 12 noon with the surgeon as he took a lunch break. He sat on an exercise bike, pedaling and ate a sandwich while we talked abut the future and he showed me items like new T-shirts and a Timex Ironman watch.

To say the least it wasn’t productive and this was very early on in the race history. You could tell it was important to the owners to make some money from this promotion. I was not happy with the result and had to come home and tell these investors to take a serious look at the operation as it was running in Penticton. My one recommendation that was taken was to open up the race to more participants. Get more money in the till. There were at least two owner groups after that.

The City of Penticton and their massive volunteer pool made it work so well, but I guess there are times in a promotion where the promoters have decide if the next step is worth it.

John Thomson is the Okanagan's pre-eminent business columnist writing his column, Rumours and Things, for over 24 years. Plugged in to the valley's who's who, John keeps his readers coming back for more with his straight talk and optimistic perspective on where we are headed next.

When John is not writing his column, he runs a sixteen year old think tank called the Executive Roundtable and holds his popular "Thomson Presents" quarterly business speaker seminars.